Reed changes
Wednesday December 26 2007
Reed orders have slowed down recently, which is really too bad because I’m now making some of the best reeds of my life. This vacation has taken me on a mission to give me more cover, more warmth in the tone, and more stability in my low notes. I messed with everything; shaper tips, gouge stuff, and I even mixed up my staples a bit. My biggest changes were in my scrape of course, and I’ve worked long and hard to try to draw out these in a diagram.
The first picture on the left is the “before” and on the right is the “after”. As you can tell, I’m leaving more in the middle of my tip, and just leaving the tip thicker in general. The problem I was having was in doing so, my reeds were still quite “tippy” sounding, so I had to shorten my tips to raise pitch and to have the reed vibrate purportionately. The results have turned out great, and I’m getting great feedback from some reed clients who have recently ordered from me, saying nothing but positive things.
I’ve also started approaching my scrape a bit differently. Previously, I would scrape the heck out of the heart and then fine tune the tip to build in the proper resistance and balance. But I’ve been working a bit slower now, and leaving the heart thicker in general until the very end, and then start taking little by little out of the heart until my reed is perfectly balanced. It’s giving me a bit more to blow against, and more stability as well. I couldn’t be happier with the changes.
I’m still working on my embouchure shift, but all is going well. It just takes patience and time.
cjwrightoboe
Dec 26, 2007
Hi John,
My thickest part of the heart usually measures between .45-.47. I think it really depends on the gouge. I could get it to .50 if my sides were thicker, but I prefer thinner sides for more flexibility.
Dec 26, 2007
Nice stuff, Cooper. Wayne Rapier told me at his Fresno State seminar several years ago that he & Tabuteau arrived at a general notion that the tip should be .10 mm all the way across. I think Martin Schuring says .10 mm to .12 mm is good.
What are your measurements at the thickest part of the heart? My teacher, Bob Hubbard, says that it should be .50 mm. I really strive to get that measurement on the money. It seems to pay dividends (pun intended) Also darkness in the middle of the tip going up from your peak or heart vertex to the tip of the tip creates marvelous lows. I think my dark area here is about 2 mm across. Kerry Willingham has great pictures on his website which show this.
Thanks again for your evolutionary musings.
Best,
john
——-